By Satenik Ayrapetyan

Noticing the diversity gap in Hollywood writers’ rooms, television writer and showrunner Dave Caplan approached the California State University, Northridge Department of Cinema and Television Arts to help jumpstart a program to bring more diversity to the industry.

Now in its second year at CSUN, the Cinema/TV Comedy Writing Mentorship program provides students one-on-one mentorships with industry professionals including Caplan, who worked on “Roseanne,” “George Lopez,” “The Drew Carey Show” and was writer/executive producer and co-showrunner on ABC’s hugely popular “The Conners” that ended its seventh and final season this year.

Caplan, a CSUN alumni, said, “The more diverse voices you have in writing rooms, the more authentic characters and stories are going to be. A good showrunner on a TV show wants diverse voices. They don’t want a bunch of voices that are exactly like their voice. They want something that will help make a richer, more original show.”

Every semester, the program opens to six seniors in their final semester who are paired with six industry professionals who act as their mentors. The students work with their mentors to iron out their pitches, scripts and concepts for the stories they want to tell.

CSUN student Kate Kim hopes to become a screenwriter. She is working on a screenplay about a sheriff-turned-outlaw in the Western cowboy genre, and working with Caplan has helped her gain confidence as she learns writing and industry-related skills such as pitching and authenticity.

“One of the biggest lessons I learned was as a writer you need to be honest with yourself and not take things personally,” Kim said. “And that’s really helped me.”

The program begins with a getting-to-know session on Zoom between the student and their assigned mentor. This helps foster a connection, allowing the pair to bond. Students not only get a second pair of eyes on their work, they get direct feedback from industry professionals on how to break into the field.

For Abraham Martinez-Pena, an alumni of the program, the aid he received was especially helpful in filling gaps in his work.

“It made me a well-rounded writer,” Martinez-Pena said. “When I was starting off, I’d always start with making characters, make dialogue and just write up the action scene — and go. But after learning from this program, what I got from it is that structure and delivery are very important.”

Among other things, the students learn how to find agents and managers.

“When I first came to college and was like, ‘I’m gonna do screenwriting,’ I didn’t really know anything about the industry or anything involving it,” Kim said. “This program helped me get a better understanding of how writing works. You aren’t locked into a room just to write. You have to do pitching, you have to do partners — there’s a whole team involved.”

For some, the program helps them find their footing and decide what they want to do.

Elizabeth Ruiz, an alumni of CSUN, spent her time in the program narrowing down what she wanted to achieve. Now she is working on a pilot script for TV that focuses on a Hispanic family and their experiences.

“I pitched the show in a way that I thought would be most sellable,” Ruiz said. “It’s a show about a Hispanic family. But when I pitched it they were half-white — (my) try to appeal to a broader audience. But my mentor told me to write the story that I want to write, and that I shouldn’t think what the outside world wants or thinks, but what is true to myself and what is true to the story I’m telling.”

Ruiz still works with her mentor to help polish and finalize her script.

Caplan says that students like Ruiz gain mountains of confidence thanks to the encouragement of their mentors. “The difference between the first session and the last session is remarkable,” Caplan said. “Sometimes that targeted attention from a pro, and the confidence that you can get from somebody saying, ‘You can do this’ is transformative, and makes all the difference.”